British Stratification & British Novels

The concept of parents plays an important role in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and parentage determines social position. Pip is an orphan, and the driving force in his life, a drive that takes several different forms, is to have a family, the family he was denied as a child. The stratified social structure of England equates family with social position and worth. An orphan like Pip sees little chance of achieving a high social position because of the lack of family, and antecedents count for more than individual worth or achievement. Pip thus has a double reason for yearning for parents and for seeking a family which will give him the social imprimatur he craves.

In Dickens' view, as the novel shows, true worth does come from within and not from social position or wealth, but this view goes against the grain of British society. Pip learns this lesson after many emotional hardships and disappointments, but in the

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uring class and the working class are in conflict, each seeing the development of a manufacturing economy from a different perspective. It seems clear that the author had a moral purpose in mind in writing this book, a purpose of revealing to the reading public the conditions in the manufacturing districts and the plight of the people who worked there. In this developing world, the aristocracy is less important than mercantile and financial classes. Those who have money live one way, and those who work for a living live quite another. John Barton serves as the spokesperson of the point of view of the worker, and he denounces the developing capitalist system in near-Marxian terms. Barton commits a murder out of frustration when it becomes clear that the strike will not be settled, certainly not in favor of the workers. The social stratification that had always been part of English life has become a different kind of exploitation in the industrial age, and social mobility, while clearly improved as society becomes more geared to wealth than birth, remains an unachieveable dream for most of the uneducated working class, which cannot even earn a sufficient wage for its needs.  Works Cited Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations.
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2746
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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